#maritime-security

#maritime-security

Chinese, Russian and Iranian ships were seen moving into and out of the harbour that serves South Africa's top naval base in Simon's Town, south of Cape Town, where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic Ocean. It was not immediately clear if other countries from the BRICS group which also includes Brazil, India and the United Arab Emirates, among others would take part in the drills.

Firstly, there has been the outright public scepticism from the UK and European allies to America's designs on Greenland. Secondly, the circumspect position of the British government on Washington's actions in Venezuela in which the prime minister welcomed the ends, the removal of President Maduro, but didn't want to be publicly drawn on the legality or otherwise of the means. And then, thirdly, the pride in assisting America in the seizing of a ship in the North Atlantic, itself a reminder of how close to home this brings the headlines of recent days.

Finnish authorities have seized a vessel suspected of intentionally severing undersea telecommunications cables amid fears of Russian sabotage in the Gulf of Finland. The seized cargo vessel Fitburg was en route from the Russian port of St Petersburg to Israel at the time of the incident on Wednesday, Finnish Border Guard officials said at a news conference in Helsinki. The Fitburg was dragging its anchor in the sea and was directed to Finnish territorial waters, the police and Border Guard said.

A diplomatic breakthrough after more than 30 years of international isolation, following its break-up from Somalia. But Israel's recognition of Somaliland as an independent state is drawing widespread condemnation. Somaliland is strategically located near the Bab al Mandeb, through which a third of the world's shipping crosses into the Red sea. That makes it vital for maritime security and intelligence operations in a volatile region.

privateers, authorized by government-issued letters of marque to ply the trade of piracy in service of their country by targeting enemy ships. These modern day privateers, under a bill introduced Thursday by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), would receive authorization from U.S. President Donald Trump as private individuals to seize foreign vessels from anyone who "is a member of a cartel, a member of a cartel-linked organization, or a conspirator associated with a cartel or a cartel-linked organization."

Communication between vessels is one of the main challenges during the deployment of multi-domain, multi-vessel operations,

Navies across the world contribute to international security by protecting maritime trade routes. A strong navy is capable of projecting national power far beyond a country's borders. Each navy reveals a nation's resources and priorities, and goals. These groups of men and women range from small coastal patrol forces to massive fleets with a variety of technologically advanced vessels like aircraft carriers, submarines, and destroyers. Aside from military purposes, navies also aid in things like disaster relief.

Following the seizure of a tanker carrying Venezuelan oil in waters off the country's coastin a spectacular operation that the U.S. government sought to publicize extensivelyWashington announced sanctions on Thursday against half a dozen other similar vessels, opening the door to further seizures. In addition, it imposed sanctions on three of the Chavista leader's nephews. The new phase has heightened existing tensions in the Caribbean, where Washington maintains its largest military presence in decades.

"All of global data exchange flows through these cables," said Johannes Peters, the head of the Center for Maritime Strategy and Security at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel. "The internet, payment orders, any kind of information you can think of, any kind of spoken communication, it runs almost exclusively through these cables," Peters told DW. "On a global level, we are dependent on them."

The 'research' vessel Yantar presents a significant defence and national security challenge

A ship has caught fire in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen after being struck by a projectile, the British military said, with one report suggesting its crew was preparing to abandon the vessel. The incident on Saturday comes as Yemen's Houthi rebels have maintained their military campaign of attacking ships through the Red Sea corridor in solidarity with Palestinians under fire in Israel's genocidal war in Gaza.

Oil prices declined on Friday, after settling around 1.6% lower in the previous session, as the market's risk premium faded after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a plan to end the war in Gaza. "Finally having some kind of peace process in the Middle East is lowering the shoulders a little bit," said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB. This could ease fears about crude carriers passing through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, he said.

Preliminary checks showed that the device had a "compact probe designed to measure seawater salinity, temperature, and depth," the statement said.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the U.S. has carried out a strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug-carrying vessel that departed from Venezuela. The president offered scant details on the operation. When you leave the room, you'll see that we just, over the last few minutes, literally, shot a boat a drug-carrying boat, Trump told reporters during an unrelated Oval Office event. He added there were a lot of drugs on the vessel.

"The Colombian navy announced the seizure of an autonomous semisubmersible, the first of its kind in the country's waters... believed to be on a trial run to transport cocaine to the US or Europe."

The vehicle is fully autonomous. We set it, kind of a routing, a waypoint, basically give it an area in which it can operate and then it autonomously decides where to go and how to get there. We've got 20 different sensors per vehicle. There's ranges from radars to cameras, optical, infrared, acoustics, RF. And we have an onboard ML, AI running on GPU compute.

The Yemeni group has stated that Israeli-linked ships are legitimate targets. The Houthis claim to be targeting these vessels as part of their campaign against Israel.

French police used knives to puncture a boat in shallow seas near Boulogne, representing a significant change in their approach to intercepting boats carrying asylum seekers.

The Colombian Navy intercepted a remote-controlled submarine in the Caribbean, capable of carrying over 1.5 tons of cocaine and reaching distances up to 800 miles.

Greece warned its ship owners to reassess entering the Persian Gulf following US airstrikes on Iran, citing increased risks to vessels.

The presence of clandestine Russian vessels has caused alarm over the vulnerability of key underwater infrastructure, especially since Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.